Close enough. When Jackson next walks into an NBA arena, it’ll be as a free man. His seven-game, league-mandated suspension for pleading guilty in June to a felony charge of criminal recklessness expired at the end of Friday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers.

Jackson is expected to start Sunday afternoon for a Warriors team that has desperately missed

his salutary contributions in almost every facet of the game. Coach Don Nelson expects Jackson’s presence to increase the communication on defense and raise the intelligence of the whole unit on the floor.

But after watching the Warriors’ first seven games from afar, Jackson thinks he can make the biggest impact on offense by sharing some of the distribution duties with Baron Davis.

“If you watched the games last year, I was one of the guys getting Andris (Biedrins) eight easy buckets a game, getting some open 3s for guys. That’s what I do,” Jackson said. “We’ve got a lot of scorers. I know I’m going to get a lot of guys easy shots, and that’s going to get us going on offense and defense.”

Although Jackson has been pushing himself in an attempt to keep up his conditioning, it remains to be seen how he’ll react to being thrown into the fire by Nelson, who is leaning heavily on his veterans in the early going.

“He’s going from no minutes to 38, if he can do it,” Nelson said. “He’s going to be screaming to get out of the game.”

Jackson doesn’t plan to say “uncle” anytime soon.

“It’s going to take me awhile probably to get in the shape I need to be, but I feel like I could play the whole game,” Jackson said. “Practice and game speed are two different speeds, I know that, and the level of play is different from practices to games. But I’m all up for it, man. I’m going to fight to get back quick and continue to work on it.”

OFF THE GLASS: Jackson isn’t the only addition the Warriors are expecting this weekend. Forward Mickael Pietrus, who did not make it back from France in time for Friday’s game, should meet the team today in Toronto and be available Sunday. … Friday marked the debut of the Warriors’ new Student Body standing-room area at the top of Section 122. Twenty college students with valid school I.D. will be chosen at every Friday and Saturday home game based on their “enthusiasm, energy and creative Warriors spirit,” according to a team release.

More in News

Around 8:20 p.m., a 50-year-old Oakland man was driving on eastbound I-580 lanes near Edwards Avenue when a bullet came through his windshield from an unknown direction, CHP Officer Matthew Hamer said.

Around 5:35 p.m., CHP officers responded to a report of the incident in westbound I-580 lanes at Main Street. En route, officers learned a vehicle's driver said a person in another vehicle brandished a handgun and fired a shot.

In addition to evacuating 10 neighboring homes, deputies restricted pedestrian and vehicle traffic in the area while the sheriff's office bomb squad "safely disposed" of the explosives, officials said.